13 Games of Halloween Day 4 – Dark Seed

On the fourth day of Halloween,
our Dark Lord Cthulhu brought unto us
A man torured by his dreams.

What happens when you take the surreal art of HR Giger and merge it with video games. You get Dark Seed, the surreal and very dark adventure game.

One night Mike Dawson has a Nightmare. In this nightmare he is imprisoned in an alien machine and the embryo of something evil is implanted into his head. The following morning he wakes in his new home with a splitting headache. After have some pain relief he explores his new home some more and finds clues about the previous owner death. And more shockingly the entrance to another dimension hidden in his new home. Will Mike be able to unravel the mystery of the Dark Seed before it is too late to save both himself and all of Humanity?

Dark Seed was a very rich and dark game. It is, however, not an easy game to play. The puzzles are all time sensitive and one mistake with timing means that the game will go into an un-winnable state. It will take multiple plays to know where and when actions must be taken in order to win. This means you maybe watching the same cut scenes and playing out the same actions many times. When I owned the game on the Amiga I remember it taking me months to complete.

Yet given enough time and patience this game is rewarding and the levels of detail woven into the game, and the duel world mechanics, mean it is worth the play. Also the art work by Giger looks stunning especially on something like the AGA Amiga hardware.

The game is available for the Amiga (OCS/ECS and AGA), Amiga CD32, MS DOS, Macintosh, Sega Saturn and PlayStation. Be aware that the Saturn version is only available in Japan but is in English with japanese subtitles. So it is playable for those who like to import their games.

If you wake in the morning to find you have a headache you best check for a portal to another dimension and get help.

I grew up in the magical 8-bit era of computers and consoles. I saw the games crash and saw the recovery from it with the NES. I will always have my trusty C64 in my office and when the need arises I will pop a tape in the Datasette and play some classic games.

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I love that you mentioned this game. I bought it with “Alone in the Dark” and had a great time messing around with it. Low tolerance for frustration prevented me from getting too far into it, but I loved the Giger graphics and general vibe.

Had this great game for DOS.
Never finished it, because of the time-sensitive nature of gameplay, as you mentioned.

But it looked great and was rather creepy.
The whole dimension-shifting aspect might’ve inspired the later Silent Hill’s excellent use of portals.
It’s a great trick to have the player get used to a layout, then shift it around a bit for an unsetling effect, yet you can still find your way around (despite some new dead ends).

Yeah, I was really pleased to find out a game had been made with this great artist’s visions of horror.
Another Halloween game I’d love to get back into.
And indeed, one of the best game box covers of all times.